


You Have a Herbivore’s Dentition

by NeurotropicAgentX



Series: So Much to Tell You [3]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Arguing, Dubious Ethics, Minor Consent Issues Around Symbiote Instincts, Other, Rare Pairings, Their Pillow Talk is Just Arguing, Violent Sex, What is the Correct Amount of Murder?, Xeno, and enjoying it, eating people, from everyone, violent murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-10-25 23:01:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20732144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeurotropicAgentX/pseuds/NeurotropicAgentX
Summary: Venom invites Riot to hunt bad guys. A struggle for the moral high ground ensues. Like the fight on the launchpad, neither Drake nor Eddie are particularly well-equipped for it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to both my usual editor and my special guest editor.

Drake lay with Brock sprawled half on top of him. Sweat was cooling on their skin and beneath that fragile barrier Riot and Venom were twined together exchanging their signals through human flesh. The symbiotes enjoyed signalling after sex. Drake wondered if that was because of the lingering hormones in his and Brock’s systems or if they were simply being influenced by some kind of human pair-bonding instinct. 

Either way it was pleasant having Brock and Venom like this. They were all in _his_ bed, for once, which meant there was actually enough space for two humans. Brock had a frustrating preference for meeting up at his shabby little apartment, which was almost certainly motivated by pure spite. He set reactionary boundaries every time Drake pushed on the slightest little thing. 

Drake idly ran his nails down Brock’s flank. Riot was just enough of an outward presence to lend some sharpness. Brock groaned and shifted into the touch. He bit lightly at Drake’s shoulder, more in acknowledgement than retaliation. A small smile twitched across Drake’s lips. Some of it had to be Riot. Drake could feel its lazy satisfaction as it curled with Venom, basking in the chemical echoes of his and Brock’s pleasure. But it wasn’t just Riot. As frustrating as Brock was, he and Venom had become important to Drake in ways that had nothing to do with their power and uniqueness. Having them relaxed and unguarded in the centre of his and Riot’s territory satisfied an itch he’d never had before. 

Riot’s shivery excitement pulsed through their link, breaking Drake’s line of thought. His hand twitched where it had been tracing patterns on Brock’s back and his pulse kicked up. ‘Riot?’ Drake subvocalised. 

**Venom invited us to hunt.**

Drake smiled and resumed his lazy stroking. Inky pools of Venom manifested beneath his hand to get its share of the attention. The alien texture of its flesh felt good against his fingertips. Hunting was a favourite pastime of both symbiotes, though they seldom indulged. Even now, they were fighting a lifetime of instincts whenever they went after prey together. Non-hierarchical teamwork did not come naturally to them. ‘I have a particular stretch of beach in mind. Maybe later this week?’

**On land,** Riot added carefully. 

Drake tensed. ‘Humans,’ he said, forcing the word out.

**Yes.**

He swore viciously. Brock lifted his head and Drake realised he’d been talking out loud. 

‘Hhn?’ Brock said blearily. 

‘I’m going to assume that Venom was the one making this invitation with zero input from you. Then I won’t have to strangle you,’ he said calmly.

Brock blinked at him frowned. ‘What? What invitation?’ Drake breathed out heavily through his nose. Brock’s expression went unfocused and distant as he consulted with Venom. ‘Oh,’ he finally said. ‘Uh… do you… want to? I assume Riot does.’

Drake stared at him. ‘No,’ he said slowly and clearly. ‘No, I do _not_ want to take to the city streets and _kill_ and _eat_ a human being for Riot and Venom’s gratification.’ 

Enough of his underlying revulsion must have made it into his tone because Brock bristled, pushing himself up on his elbows so he could glare down at Drake. Riot and Venom slowly disentangled and melted back into their host bodies, breaking a strange four-way connection that wasn’t quite like symbiosis. ‘We only hunt bad guys. The worst of the worst. And not everyone has access to lab animals,’ said Bock.

‘And I’ve never even tried to stop you. But I want no part of your twisted little hobby and I’ll thank you to leave Riot out of it.’

‘You’re acting pretty high and mighty for someone who was torturing homeless people to death in your labs.’

‘For scientific progress! For breakthroughs that have saved millions of lives!’ How _dare_ Brock compare crucial lab trials to his murderous appetite? Drake’s jaw clenched as he forced himself to speak at a normal volume. ‘I know what I sacrificed in my labs. But that wasn’t for my gratification.’

‘Bullshit. It was for your egomania. The mighty Carlton Drake, saviour of humanity.’ Brock’s expression went mock-concerned and he gestured at Drake’s face. ‘You’ve got a little… yeah, there, your god-complex is showing.’

Drake sat up, forcing Brock to rearrange himself. ‘_My_ god-complex? I’m not the one who thinks that I can see into the souls of humans and meaningfully decide who gets to live and who counts as bad enough to _eat_. You sit in judgment over petty street criminals and dare to feel morally superior because you only target the “bad” ones. How can you possibly make that call? About _anyone_?’ 

‘So how did you make the call, then? I know for a fact you weren’t picking bad guys.’

Brock was still flatly refusing Drake’s job offer, but had taken it upon himself to dig into the Life Foundation every so often. It was lucky that Drake had switched focus to geo-engineering so there was nothing currently happening under his orders that would upset Brock’s simplistic view of morality. He honestly didn’t know what would happen between them if Brock discovered something he didn’t like. Drake wouldn’t, _couldn’t_, let a personal relationship dictate the choices he made. But the symbiotes complicated things. _Brock_ complicated things. 

‘You want to know how I chose my subjects?’ Drake asked. ‘I had one criterion. I chose people who wouldn’t be investigated by the police when they disappeared. I didn’t delude myself into imagining that picking one person was better than picking another one. They were all human lives. Every last one of them. Equally valuable, equally precious, and each one a necessary sacrifice. Did you find out about the free treatment program while you were digging into my work?’

‘No,’ Brock said suspiciously. ‘PR move?’

‘No, it was _off_ the books. I couldn’t afford that I kind of attention. For every person who died in one of my experiments, one patient got free treatment for a terminal condition out of the Life Foundation’s pocket, using our own breakthrough developments. A trade.’

Brock was staring at him. He looked less angry and more horrified now. ‘That’s insane. Human lives don’t work like that! You can’t just trade one for one like some sick economy of human misery and pretend that makes it okay!’

‘That’s certainly a commonly held opinion. Would you like to see the statistics on how many people have been saved by treatments my company has developed?’ Drake asked pleasantly. 

‘Those numbers don’t make the blood on your hands just disappear. Maybe human lives really are all worth the same to you, but I notice how _you_ never signed up for your human trials.’

Drake sneered. ‘Because if I died in them then there would be no one else prepared to follow through with my work. You’re all too cowardly to make the kind of calls I made. To live with the decisions I made.’ People let their emotions rule them, they couldn’t separate out what _felt_ right from what _was_ right. But Drake could. He could make hard choices completely dispassionately. The right choices.

Brock just shook his head. ‘And what about when you had your goons try and murder me? How does that figure into your life-trading equations?’

Anger roiled hot and thick in the pit of Drake’s stomach. He’d never had this argument outside his own head and he didn’t have a ready answer for that. Obviously it had been necessary to eliminate Brock. Brock, who’d come after his company, his life’s work, half-baked and _badly_. He hadn’t even bothered to cover his tracks. Drake had warned him off and he still kept coming. He’d stolen a symbiote and then _lost_ it moments before his people had brought him in. ‘It was necessary. You were a threat,’ Drake said through gritted teeth.

‘Oh, a _threat_, which is _different_ than a “precious human life”. Yeah, you’re definitely in the right here. A real hero,’ he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Why was Drake even bothering to reason with him? People never understood, were never prepared to make necessary sacrifices. They just wanted easy answers. He went on the offensive. ‘Tell me, when you and Venom hunt “bad guys” do you enjoy it? Is it all Venom’s predator instincts or is some of that _your_ righteous wrath? I’m sure it makes you feel powerful. Like a real hero,’ he added, throwing Brock’s words back at him.

Brock really needed to learn to control his expressions better. ‘It’s not like that,’ he said quickly. 

‘Then what is it like? I know what hunting feels like for them.’ That strange, alien pleasure flooding their mind, their bond. Unsurprising that Brock couldn’t resist the allure of that. He didn’t have Drake’s self-control.

‘Maybe you two want to come along and find out.’

The obvious diversion surprised a laugh out of Drake. ‘I can almost admire that dogged persistence of yours.’ He turned his attention inward. Riot had been silent during the entire exchange and that was… concerning.

‘You’re not pushing for this,’ Drake subvocalised to Riot. There wasn’t much control over tone when he communicated like this, but even so he tried to keep his emotions away from their link.

**No.**

‘I’m surprised. I don’t imagine even someone as self-righteous as Brock is killing and eating humans without a significant push from Venom. And yet you’ve never pushed hunting humans with me.’ This was dangerous ground. Drake had his suspicions about Riot’s behaviours. Their reunion had been complicated, with Riot unsure of its welcome. And even with strong evidence, Drake hadn’t been fully certain that Riot wouldn’t seize full control the moment it re-bonded with him. So they were careful with each other, even now, and bringing attention to that could upset the delicate balance between them. 

**I know how you feel about your species. The unbending desire to save them. That is… understandable to me. There is other prey to satisfy our hunger.**

Drake’s next blink lasted a second longer than normal. He hadn’t expected _empathy_ from Riot. ‘Thank you.’

Riot shifted inside him, oozing up his spine and spreading across his back and shoulders in a sub-dermal caress. 

Drake made a decision. Trading more words with Brock wouldn’t get him anywhere, but maybe he could use this hunt as a tool of persuasion. Brock obviously wasn’t going to respond to logic, but he might respond to empathy. Most people needed a certain amount of detachment from their worst actions. Brock probably didn’t know the names and stories of his victims, probably didn’t see them as people at all. 

Riot was stronger than Venom, Drake was sure, and they could intervene. They could stop the hunt and force Brock to confront what he was doing to his ‘bad guys’. And maybe it wasn’t pure altruism on Drake’s part. If Brock and Venom stopped hunting humans, they might be more amenable to finally accepting Drake’s job offer. Especially if he stipulated that a living, non-human lunch would be supplied. 

**You want to stop a hunt in the middle?** Riot asked uneasily.

‘Sorry. I know you won’t enjoy that,’ Drake subvocalised.

Riot coiled around itself beneath Drake’s diaphragm. **It will be both of us. Hunting requires deep symbiosis, to be able to move and attack fast enough.**

‘... yes?’

**Do you think you _can_ stop us both?**

Drake frowned. ‘You’re not going to fight me on it, will you?’

**No. But the hunt will feel good. Hard to stop. For both of us,** Riot added pointedly.

‘It won’t be hard for me to stop us. I don’t want to kill and eat anyone.’

**No? Our compatibility is more than just your immune system. You know I permeate you at every level. Including your brain.**

Drake shivered at the reminder. Riot occupying his body was one thing, an easy trade for its power. It was just as invested in the smooth running of Drake’s physiology and had no reason to do anything it couldn’t fix. But thinking about the way Riot was hooked into his neural circuitry gave him a powerful, visceral response every time. Was it possible to crave something and fear it all at once? The flesh was basically unimportant, but the _mind_… ‘So you’ve made modifications?’ he asked neutrally. 

**Yes, but not the way you mean. Not in a way that would affect your consciousness. Our bond was easy because of what _already_ existed in you. You choose not to do something. That doesn’t mean you don’t _want_ to do it.**

‘I’m not Brock.’

Riot didn’t reply immediately. **No.**

Drake realised that he’d closed his eyes to focus on Riot better. When he opened them, he was looking at Brock’s wary expression. ‘I talked it over with Riot. We accept your invitation.’

Brock’s expression softened around the edges. ‘You’d do a lot for Riot, wouldn’t you?’

Drake had to bite his tongue. Was that how Brock justified it to himself? That he was murdering people _for Venom_, so somehow that made it into something good and virtuous? ‘Yes,’ he said instead, and that wasn’t even a lie.

In the back of their mind, Riot’s pleasure at the confession couldn’t entirely mask its uneasiness. 

///

Venom wasn’t paying much attention to the route as it took them back to their territory. It was much more interested in the swirl of Eddie’s emotions in his body and through their link. The talk with Drake had been interesting and Venom had mostly kept quiet, listening avidly to the alien ideas and strange ways of thinking about things.

**You don’t like that I invited Riot to hunt with us?** Venom guessed, breaking the deep silence that happened when Eddie was thinking very hard. Their claws dug into the rooftop as they sprinted toward the next gap. Venom barely needed to think about the way they were moving. Everything felt easy, natural, with the way Eddie trusted Venom’s control over their body.

_No, no that’s fine. I know how you feel about hunting and hunting with Riot. What we do is _fine_. I just don’t like that a murderous bastard like Drake somehow managed to find a high horse to climb on._

Venom flicked through Eddie’s memories, trying to make sense of more than just the words. **Drake kills people that aren’t bad guys,** Venom finally said. The distinction between bad-guy and not-bad-enough-guy was still kind of hazy for Venom. Easier to just cheat and rely on Eddie’s emotions when it was trying to work out who the bad guys where. Venom was right nearly all the time when it used that method, instead of trying to guess from the vague explanations Eddie had provided. There were those weird cases, of course, where Eddie’s emotions were filled with disgust and rage, but he’d mutter something like ‘circumstances’ or ‘just a stupid kid’ and tell Venom no. 

_Exactly. It’s wrong to kill innocent people,_ Eddie said firmly.

Old guilt twisted through Venom. Maria. Eddie had known her, liked her, and Venom had eaten her. There were others, of course, dozens, but none of them had been known to Eddie. None of their deaths left this strange uncomfortable feeling that echoed through the link. 

_Hey, no. That was Drake. He knew what he was doing, feeding those people to you and the others. You just did what you had to._

**So killing not-bad-guys isn’t wrong if you have to?** Venom reasoned slowly. 

There was an uncomfortable shift somewhere in the middle of Eddie’s guts. Emotional, not physical, Venom recognised. Nothing it was able to fix. _It’s still wrong. But it’s complicated. And who gets the blame matters too,_ he said after a while.

Venom silently agreed that it sounded complicated. After all, Eddie and Drake were both humans and they had different opinions about this. How was _it_ supposed to figure out the correct human answer if there wasn’t a consensus? Things were easier for its people. If you were strong enough you could eat whatever you wanted. That was just factually true. There wasn’t any ‘should’ to complicate matters. ‘Should’ was only about controlling aberrant behaviours.

The pieces suddenly snapped into place and Venom _understood_. **Killing humans is aberrant, for a human!**

_Uh… yeah. Most people don’t kill other people._

**And sometimes bad guys are people who kill people. _They_ are aberrant, so we’re allowed to eat them.** Venom was smugly pleased by its reasoning. Maybe humans weren’t so strange in their ‘shoulds’. This revelation even helped it understand what Drake thought. He had different standards of how aberrant he was allowed to be. Venom was more comfortable with its aberrance than Riot. Naturally Eddie, Venom’s perfect host, would be more accepting than Riot’s host.

_That, uh, kind of? It’s complicated._

Venom hummed its agreement, pleased that it understood a different set of alien values. It was getting good at humans.

///

It was a cold night, but the wind wasn’t too bad. Certainly better than on the beaches where they usually met up. Eddie and Venom were restless as they waited for the other two to arrive. It was hard to tell which of them the feeling was originating from. Probably both. Venom’s restlessness was filled with gleeful anticipation and the lingering wariness of having to trust another symbiote. Eddie’s was… different. He still didn’t quite trust the way Drake had agreed to this last week. Sure, he’d talked with Riot, but Eddie had no idea what they’d said to each other. How Riot had managed to be persuasive. 

‘Riot definitely wants this, right? I uh, know you prefer bad guys to… to other food. It has to be the same for him, yeah?’ Eddie asked. The alleyway they were loitering in was dank and smelled faintly of piss. Even though the chances of passers by at this hour was low, Eddie still muttered the words under his breath. It was a habit now and the number of weird looks he got on the street was a fraction of what they’d been in the early days. 

Venom was silent for a moment in a way that meant it was struggling to find the right human words. **Yes. Bad guys are the best food and have a lot of what we need. But Riot was a team leader. He’s not used to being hungry. The food matters less to him. The hunt, the fight, matter more. But he wants this. With us.**

Eddie nodded, catching some of the strange underlying feelings Venom was trying to communicate. The symbiotes liked human sex and the four-way relationship that they’d all sort of cobbled together. But hunting together was something else. Something for Venom and Riot that wasn’t necessarily more important than the human things, but… instinctual, maybe. Fundamental. 

Eddie didn’t think too hard about hunting and eating with Venom and the way it lit up their shared mind like fireworks. It was probably just the adrenaline that got them so keyed-up afterwards. And Drake had no room to talk about right and wrong anyway. 

**Above us,** Venom pointed out, interrupting Eddie’s increasingly guilty train of thought. The warning meant that Eddie didn’t startle when Riot dropped down in front of them. 

Riot was fully manifest, huge, dark silver and every inch a dangerous predator. They almost never saw Riot like this and Eddie couldn’t tear his eyes away. Riot usually showed as a few subtle tendrils running across Drake’s skin or maybe half-overlaying him when they were all in safe territory. Even in the oceans they never really _looked_ at each other. Unlike the humans, the symbiotes were suited to deep, lightless seas where they used senses Eddie didn’t even have a name for. 

‘Do we look like that?’ Eddie mumbled to Venom. Venom could kind of project an image of them for Eddie, but it was different seeing this in 3D. In the flesh. 

**Yes and no. Riot moves differently.**

Riot was watching them curiously, his milky eyes unblinking in the low light. Venom and Eddie took a step forward, moving together without really thinking about it. Reaching out just seemed like the obvious thing to do. 

Riot felt a lot like Venom beneath Eddie’s bare palm. Slick but not wet, not quite warm, but not cold either. He couldn’t feel Drake’s heartbeat beneath Riot’s flesh, but on an instinctual level he knew that rhythm was influencing the way Riot’s surface shifted and swirled against his skin. One of Riot’s massive hands curled around Eddie’s hand and forearm, keeping them pressed close. Eddie shivered. ‘Hey, Riot,’ he said. 

**‘Hello,’** said Riot. Eddie could feel the rumble of the word against his whole hand. Venom had spread inky tendrils out from Eddie’s fingertips to say hello in his own way. With they way his tendrils seemed to melt into Riot’s flesh, he might have been saying hello to Drake as well. 

Eddie wasn’t exactly sure when ‘terrifying blade-monster’ had become ‘hot blade-monster’ and maybe that was because the underlying feelings between those two things weren’t so different. Maybe it was because of Venom, who seemed to have had a similar shift in opinion. ‘Drake’s not sulking, is he?’ Eddie asked with a smile. 

**‘No. We are close, for the hunt. It’s merely safer to look like this in the city.’**

Now that Eddie was listening for it, he could hear a curl of the way Drake spoke in Riot’s words. They had to be pretty deep in their symbiosis to speak together like that. Venom rippled in him and across his skin. A display of that closeness, even in people that weren’t them was _getting_ to Venom. His desires around symbiosis ran deep. 

There was a nudge along their bond. Venom was asking permission to take over. He could have just done it, but that wasn’t the point. Eddie smiled and sort of… let himself go. It was a million times easier than meditation and it felt utterly natural to go from _him_ to _them_. These days they were halfway there even outside the hunt. 

Venom practically purred as they sank into each other. The wanting, the choosing, was more satisfying to him than simply taking it. Hunger surged in them as their senses shifted. They grinned with all their teeth. **‘Let’s go.’**

Riot shifted his weight, graceful and smooth despite the bulk. **‘Yes.**

They took the lead with Riot and Drake trailing after like a liquid-silver shadow. They were the experts who had been hunting in the city for months. Not that they always found appropriate prey. They were _selective_. The best chance of good prey was when they chased after stories. Eddie’s experience meant that he had an instinct for finding the worst cases, the worst people. 

Tonight, they might not find anyone they were allowed to eat at all, but just hunting on land with another pair like them was heady. The feeling of it settled under their skin, like a faint hum, soothing and energising all at once. They couldn’t signal out here in the atmosphere. Instead they used other senses, built off the human pattern, to pick up every minute shift, every cue. 

They had started close to the usual hunting grounds, the places most likely to harbour acceptable prey. These were places full of forgotten people. Desperation was strong enough for them to scent in the air and there weren’t any cops to avoid. This type of place drew human predators, looking to exploit vulnerable people. Few things angered Eddie as much as power taking advantage of the powerless. 

Even late at night there were sounds of people talking and moving and working. Interesting, but irrelevant. They were listening for screams, for pleading. They scented the air for fresh-spilled human blood or cordite. This was their element and sharing it with another just like them satisfied something deep in their core.

They paused on a rooftop overhanging a narrow alleyway. Blood, down near the street. The scent was weak, but their hunger was clawing at them and even a hint of blood was magnetic. They dropped down to the street, slowing their descent with thick tendrils. Their flesh shifted as soon as they touched pavement, which made their landing nearly silent. Riot wasn’t quite as adept at it, but his landing was reasonably controlled too. This close it was obvious that the blood was much too old to be interesting either as food or a lead. They were about to express their disappointment when a door at the far end of the alleyway opened and a human walked out.

They pressed back into the shadows, stilling, and trusting Riot to do the same. Even in the low light, they could see the intruder clearly. They knew this person. 

**‘Scumbag.’** They said it as quietly as they could, Venom’s voice underlying Eddie’s words. **‘He killed his partner. Beat her to death. A co-worker followed the case years ago, helped bring him down.’**

**Prey,** said Venom inside their head. There was nothing but focus in his tone. No glee or gloating now, just a cold, flat understanding that they were about to make the world a better place. This wasn’t just about food and survival for them, not when they were sharing a consciousness. This was about getting justice for people who didn’t have the power to get it for themselves. 

**‘You’re sure?’** Riot asked. Or maybe that was Drake. 

‘Yeah. We’re sure,’ said Eddie. Venom had pulled himself beneath Eddie’s skin and spread out in a thin tingling layer. He was on the edge of manifesting, waiting on Eddie’s word. This was an opportunity to show Drake that they were careful, that they made sure. 

Eddie shoved his hands in his pockets and wandered toward the mouth of the alleyway. ‘Jim Nielsen,’ he said, approaching their target. They guy was big with distinctive tats. Easy to pick out of a line-up. 

Jim turned slowly. ‘Yeah? Who wants to know?’

Eddie smiled, his teeth feeling just a little too sharp. ‘Jim Nielsen, of the Razor Angels. Small time arms-dealer, right up until you got caught.’

‘I don’t know who the hell you are, but you want to keep walking.’

‘And the person who murdered Vivien Ruskin all those years ago.’

‘Walk away right now,’ Jim growled. 

Venom growled back, using Eddie’s throat. The rumble of it felt good, moving through them. 

Jim backed up a couple of steps. ‘The fuck?’

Eddie darted forward, Venom instantly sliding out across his skin. They moved together, half-human half-symbiote, and faster than anything else on this planet. Their long sharp teeth sprouted and their claws came up to swipe across their prey’s chest. Jim had already been leaping back and barely avoided getting eviscerated. He wasn’t fast enough to escape their claws entirely and blood splashed against their surface, rich and thick. 

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Jim panted. Savoury fear blossomed in the air, mingling with the mouth-watering scent of fresh-spilled blood.

A deeper snarl ripped through the night and they shivered. Distracting. There was anger in the sound, mixed in with the bloodlust. A dark silver blur threw them into a wall as it shoved past. Venom growled low in their throat as they pushed back off the wall. If Riot turned on them now in the middle of a hunt…

There was a dull crunch and a pained whimper. Venom’s head whipped around. Riot had their prey pinned to alley wall with his blades, high enough that Jim’s feet dangled uselessly above the ground. Not lethal, a shared part of Eddie and Venom’s mind registered. Riot made a low, satisfied rumble that carried an undertone of something just a little too human. He slashed through Jim’s thigh, missing the arteries. Blood welled up sluggishly as Jim screamed. **‘Venom,’** Riot coaxed. **‘You’re missing out.’**

A cold feeling slid down Eddie’s spine at the sound of Riot’s voice. They shifted closer, drawn by the alluring scent of the blood and the morbid worry coalescing in the back of their mind. Riot tore into Jim again as they approached. Another non-lethal wound. More screaming. The sound was exciting and shivered through Venom’s flesh, not quite at a frequency that caused them pain. The non-lethal wounds Riot was inflicting had to be deliberate. He was good at killing, especially if he understood the species he was targeting, and there was no deeper understanding than true symbiosis. They’d also lost bulk. Drake’s face was visible between threads of Riot’s flesh and their shape was more humanoid now.

**‘R-Riot?’** Eddie said as a crawling sensation that had nothing to do with Venom skittered across his skin.

A low raspy laugh came from Riot and Drake. ‘I **wish** to God I could say **it** was just Riot.’ There was a strange growling note beneath the words. Not just Drake, but not just Riot either. ‘Do you have any **idea** what’s it’s like **to** pursue power your entire **life** and then **suddenly have** access to **this**?’

Riot’s, Drake’s, hand twisted and wrenched. The noise Jim made didn’t even sound human. 

**‘We’re not trying to steal the kill,’** they said and held out the piece of flesh they had taken. 

Eddie’s brain kind of off-lined for a moment. Venom didn’t share that reluctance and slid closer to take what Riot offered. The taste of hot blood and meat was electric on their tongue and Eddie choked on a moan. This was better than what they caught in the oceans, better than chocolate, better than anything deep-fried. But even past the waves of otherworldly pleasure, something in Eddie rebelled. **‘Stop drawing it out,’** he growled at the other two. 

They stared at him, eyes narrowed. Then one of Riot’s blades flashed and blood sprayed from Jim’s neck. Riot’s tongue lashed and caught drops of it out of the air. Eddie’s breath hitched and hunger twisted through their body. They must have made a noise because Riot’s sharp grin widened. 

Venom and Eddie closed in as one, sinking teeth into a fresh kill that still tasted alive. They tore through meat and it slid down their throat. Flecks of blood spattered across their flesh, hot and sweet, and elation raced across their bond like lightning. The taste lanced through them as they absorbed the blood and they groaned, a human sound edged with Venom’s metallic grate. Riot and Drake’s attention swung away from the kill and their own feasting. Faster than even Venom could respond, a shifting silver hand hit the centre of their chest and pushed them back against the wall of the alleyway. Images of Riot’s blades spearing prey flashed through their mind, but there was no attack, just Riot’s looming bulk and an insistent palm holding them steady.

Drake’s, Riot’s, other hand came up and caressed the side of their face. The light touch sent a pleasant shiver through them. Felt good, smelled good. Wet. Blood. That was the blood on Riot’s claws leaving tracks on their jaw. A thick, inhuman tongue ran up the side of their face. Venom gave a contented rumble and their tongue swept out too, unwilling to let Riot have it all. Their tongues met and the taste of blood between them was dizzyingly intense. 

Eddie was drowning in the familiar-strange shape of Venom’s thoughts. Mouths were about food, teeth, killing, not sharing or drawing out pleasing shivers of sensation. Both their tongues were rough with a thousand tiny barbs manifested for the hunt. The minute catch-release as they slid against each other was an alien sensation, even for the symbiotes. Strange and intimate surface touches for pleasure were something they’d picked up from their hosts. 

Symbiotes were optimised for killing and consuming and not for things like this. But twisting through Venom’s thoughts were the shape of _Eddie’s_ thoughts, memories of kissing, of laughing, of smiles. Now interwoven with prey, killing and feeding. The layers couldn’t be separated. Not now. Eddie’s guts churned with a mixture of nausea and arousal, even as his arms came up to dig their claws into Drake and Riot’s slick shoulders to pull them closer.

It felt good, natural even, to curl tendrils around the next chunk of flesh Riot held out for them. They weren’t ready to stop this light scrape of teeth, the slide of tongues, so they formed new feeding structures along their tendril to consume the piece of bloody meat directly from Riot’s claws. Their humanoid shape wavered as they snaked long tendrils along the ground, ripping away their own piece of the kill for Riot. They fed together, every mouthful accompanied by the heady taste-scent of prey, of each other, of power. 

They pulled in closer, all of them, surfaces shifting to line up like they were trying to merge together. Heat throbbed low in Eddie’s guts. Old memories surfaced of the early days after the rocket explosion. When the two of them had been reunited, but still weak. When they’d wake up doubled over, overwhelming hunger stabbing through their body like blades. He remembered Venom hissing to him, explaining that Eddie’s hunger was alien, concentrated. His body felt hunger low in the guts, while craving was higher, in the mouth and _teeth_. For Venom it was a whole body experience, every cell screaming at once. Eddie felt that now, a whole body sensation, his and Venom’s, _theirs_, wanting to be closer, wanting more. 

Riot made a high skittering noise, almost a croon. His flesh and Venom’s slid around and through each other. In the tangle of human and symbiote, Eddie’s hand brushed against human skin. Drake’s body was pouring off heat, like a furnace at the centre of Riot’s mass. Eddie swayed forward, wanting to get closer to blood-warm flesh. His teeth itched. 

Drake wrapped a hand around Eddie’s upper arm, his fingers digging in with Riot’s strength, and shoved him around. Eddie’s face was an inch from the alley wall before Venom caught them. Drake and Riot were a burning line of contact pressed against their back and Eddie could feel warm human breath against his ear. Clothes weren’t an obstacle for either symbiote and he had no idea whose tendrils were writhing against his human skin. His focus narrowed when Drake ran claws down his front, throat to navel. Eddie shook, though the slide of claws hadn’t even torn his clothes. He knew what Drake was thinking, feeling, because it had to be the same things as him. Ripping through human flesh, evisceration, the hot gush of rich blood. The taste of it against their claws and teeth.

‘Do you have any idea what you smell like, right now?’ Drake murmured in Eddie’s ear, like he was picking those thoughts straight out of Eddie’s head. His claws twitched against Eddie’s belly and then dipped lower beneath the waistband of his pants. Eddie could feel his own pulse beating in his neck and in his dick. He was harder than he’d been in his life. 

Words were a little beyond him right now. He pushed up against Drake’s hand, trying to get some contact, some friction, anything. The sound Drake made in response was full-throated encouragement and he wrapped a hand around Eddie’s cock and squeezed, just on the edge of too much. Eddie’s breath punched out of him and his hips snapped forward against that tight grip. Drake jacked him slow and harsh, nothing like the way Eddie usually touched himself, but right now it was everything he wanted. 

He could taste musky human arousal straight out of the air, his and Drake’s. Venom liked the scent-taste of it and shivered around them both. Riot was wrapping himself around Drake and Eddie’s limbs like time-lapsed vines. Drake’s hard-on brushed against his hip, the curve of his ass. The barriers of clothes or symbiote flesh felt like nothing. They were collections of sparking nerves and hunger running into each other. 

Riot’s teeth pressed against the meat of Eddie’s shoulder, slick and hard. He was keeping the points well away so there was only a blunt line of pressure. Eddie understood the underlying desire and it made his heart beat wildly and his cock twitch in Drake’s hand. 

‘Do it, come on, do it,’ Eddie panted. His words were thick with arousal and a tongue that felt too heavy in his mouth. 

Drake made a strangled sound in the back of his throat and his hand tightened convulsively around Eddie’s cock. The gritted teeth pressing into Eddie’s shoulder parted so the points rested delicately against his skin. There was a burst of communication, nothing like words, that shivered through Venom and Riot and hit Eddie through their link. _What?_ he tried to ask.

**Trust you with this, Riot. We’re offering it.** Eddie wasn’t sure if he heard what Venom said or _felt_ the response. The way Venom said Riot’s name was weird and complex in a way he didn’t have words for. Beautiful.

Drake was repeating Eddie’s name, Venom’s name, under his breath and all at once sharp teeth sank into Eddie’s shoulder. Pure sensation tore through them. Too much for pain, too much for pleasure. All Eddie could feel was the intoxicating wash of hot human blood against his teeth. Venom’s teeth. Riot’s teeth. Drake’s. Theirs. Pleasure tugged low in his gut, but he didn’t come. Venom was holding them back, waiting for something. Eddie pushed his incoherent need through the bond, but Venom was implacable.

Eddie gave a frustrated growl and bucked hard into Drake’s hand. Not enough, not quite. The teeth slid out of Eddie’s shoulder and he groaned at the sudden loss. Warm human fingers trailed over the wounds on Eddie’s shoulder and then cupped the side of his jaw. When they brushed against his lips, Eddie sucked them into his mouth. The taste of his own blood exploded against his tongue. He bit down _hard_, only Venom and Riot stopped him from really damaging Drake’s hand. Drake’s blood, his blood, the alien tang of Riot and Venom. He licked and sucked, sure that he’d never get enough and that the roaring pit of hunger in his guts would drive him mad. 

Venom was wound deep around his muscles and bones, clinging and rippling. There was a litany of his hunger and devotion in their head, half words, half overwhelming feeling. Then a push, a shove, a realignment and Eddie went from on the edge to over the edge so fast his legs buckled. Venom held them together while pleasure surged through their body like fire. His awareness expanded outward, past the boundaries of himself and Venom and out to Riot and Drake. The four of them were shaking apart, drunk on pleasure, fragmenting, bound only with loose tendrils and the bright tang of fresh blood between them. 

Drake was gasping in air. The harsh exhales stirred the hairs on the back of Eddie’s neck. Inhuman claws twitched spasmodically around Eddie’s hips and there was something off about the movement. A discordant note shivered through the not-quite bond stringing them together.

‘Get us out of here.’ Drake’s voice was tight and unhappy. 

Eddie’s brow creased as he groped for the edges of his mind. Venom’s mind. Theirs. He managed to make a noise that was sort of a question. He could taste Drake’s stress right out of the air, which was weird. All four of them were still close enough that he could _feel_ Riot’s reluctant assent. What?

Venom’s tendrils slid away from Riot before Eddie could think of a way to stop that from happening. The loss of connection left them reeling and Eddie had to press his forehead against the alley wall while the world came back into focus and Venom patched up their shoulder.

Riot overlaid Drake’s body just like he had at the beginning of the hunt and hauled himself up the opposite side of the alley. ‘Hey, wait!’ Eddie managed to call out. What the hell had gotten into them? ‘V?’

**Not sure. Riot wasn’t sharing. But he didn’t seem surprised.**

‘We’re going after them!’ He took a lurching step in the same direction. 

**Sure.** Venom overlaid them completely and strength flooded their body. The scaled the wall in heartbeats, but Riot was moving _fast_. In the time it took them to cross to the next block, Riot had pulled way ahead. **Doesn’t look like they want to be caught.**

_Yeah…_ Eddie replied slowly. He hadn’t really stopped to think about whether running after them was a good idea or not. Drake had freaked, Riot had run, so they’d given chase. It had been instinct. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he and Venom _did_ catch up to them. 

Venom stopped them on a deserted rooftop and they watched Riot disappear into the distance. They were probably heading home. _Okay, if we don’t hear from them soon, we go after them. But maybe they just need some time to, to process or whatever._

Venom shrugged. Eddie could feel how unconcerned he was in the wake of such a successful hunt. Their hunger was now a muted background noise and their body was still humming with shared pleasure. **Riot is strong. Wouldn’t need help. We should head home too,** Venom’s suggestion was accompanied by some very specific and _detailed_ ideas that he sent across their bond.

Eddie’s breath caught. _Yeah, yeah let’s do that._

Venom grinned and dashed across the rooftop before flinging them across to the next building. The sudden movement and the height made Eddie’s guts lurch in a familiar way, but Venom had them and the speed was exhilarating. Eddie let out a breathless laugh that vibrated through them both. Venom’s grin widened.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional thanks to my special guest editor as well as my regular editor for this chapter.

Riot took them through the city, ignoring subtlety in favour of speed. They were deep in symbiosis, which meant it could exploit Drake’s unconscious calculations of distance and trajectory, but it also had trouble separating the discordant pleasure and horror radiating through the link. Drake’s emotions set Riot’s teeth on edge and it wanted to rip and tear into prey, into an enemy, into _themself_. What _was_ this? Drake seldom felt emotions like _this_. But there was a familiar tang to this feeling, something that shivered deep in Riot’s core, away from even the tight tangle of their symbiosis. Something that just belonged to Riot.

It slowed as they crossed the invisible boundary of their territory. Safety. Home. Riot tried to send the feeling across to Drake, but that didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

They’d left the window to the bedroom open just a crack. They clung to the side of their building as they used a tendril to pry the window open and slip through. Once they were standing in the true centre of their territory, Riot pulled its largest tendrils deeper into Drake’s body so it could touch all the vital places and reassure itself that there was no physical damage. It kept other parts on the outside of Drake’s skin because it could feel the strange way he was drawing reassurance from its physical presence.

**We are safe,** Riot said.

Drake gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Oh yes, quite safe. No human could do a thing to stop us and Brock and Venom wouldn’t even _bother_.’

Riot growled. **Then why are you afraid?** And Drake was afraid. It could taste the rich adrenaline in his bloodstream, the savoury tang that made it fear rather than excitement. But Drake wasn’t just afraid. The emotions were complex and that elusive-familiar taste resonated with Riot in a place beyond their shared physical experience.

‘Because we just killed and ate a human being! Because I enjoyed it! I liked it so much that the four of us fucked in an alleyway with the taste of some poor bastard’s blood on our tongues. Because of me.’

Riot went still the moment it recognised Drake’s core emotion. **I know this feeling.**

‘Really!? I had no idea you had the capacity for _shame_. You’re powerful enough to do precisely what you want without a single thought given to the consequences.’ Drake’s words were an attack, albeit a weak one. He was too caught up to realise how readily Riot could sense how much of his anger was directed at himself.

**No one is beyond reproach. Not even a team leader. Not even a core leader,** Riot said quietly. It hadn’t explained to Drake about its choices, about what true symbiosis meant among its people. Admitting that would have placed a weapon in Drake’s hands, but right now that felt less important than _fixing_ this. **I know what it is to want things you shouldn’t, to do things you shouldn’t, and to hate yourself for it.**

Even in the depths of fear and self-disgust, Drake’s curiosity flared. He was always defenceless against the lure of new information. ‘What did you do that you shouldn’t have?’ Drake asked.

**Wanting symbiosis is an aberration. Sick. Choosing this… my kind would turn from me for this.** A deep, inescapable part of Riot thought that they were right, that it should put itself before the core leaders and suffer the modifications or consumption. 

‘Then I’ll understand if you ever have to leave at a moment’s notice and pretend we don’t know each other,’ Drake snapped.

**No, you don’t understand,** Riot said. **I chose this and I am tainted by that choice. Anyone would know. The moment I chose _us_ was the moment I abandoned my species. There is no going back. There never _will_ be. It would be death.** Even if it had the impossible option of returning as a hero to the homeworld, it wouldn’t chose that. Not when it had come to crave this wonderful and terrible symbiosis with every cell. Not if it had to give up Drake.

There was a heartbeat of stillness from its host as Drake took in and processed the information. Sudden rage crashed through the link, catching Riot completely off guard. ‘I would destroy every last one of them before I let them touch you.’ Images and barely conscious thoughts flashed through Drake’s mind. The hunt still dominated his thoughts and the close, personal violence twisted into something bigger, overwhelming. Drake was thinking about neutralising the threat to Riot, to their symbiosis, to humanity, and the solution in his mind was nothing short of total fiery destruction. Of an entire species wiped away in nuclear fire. 

Riot reeled beneath the onslaught of violent images and the intensity of Drake’s feelings. It was sunk deep in Drake’s flesh, constantly anchored to muscle fibres and neurons and bones with countless clinging filaments, but for once it felt like Drake was clinging back just as hard, even past the limitations of his human flesh. Clearly this was a weakness they shared. Riot found that communicating on a conscious level was suddenly difficult. **I understand. Want this. Us. But I wouldn’t let you. They’re still my people, even if I’m a traitor.**

Drake was breathing heavily and he buried his face in his hands. ‘Oh God.’ The anger faded away as quickly as it had come and renewed horror flooded Drake’s half of the bond. 

Riot instinctively sprouted blades along Drake’s shoulders and back even though it couldn’t sense any specific threats. **What?**

‘Genocide,’ Drake whispered. ‘I just seriously contemplated wiping out an entire sapient _species_. For the sake of one individual.’ He choked on a laugh that was edged with hysteria.

Riot swirled uncomfortably beneath Drake’s skin. **It’s fine. I would stop you.**

‘That’s not the point!’ Drake snarled. ‘I’m meant to be above this! I’m rational, _logical_, not someone who gives into emotions and impulses like some unrestrained _animal_. I shouldn’t even have impulses like that. I want to help them. I want to save them, not, not torture and eat them!’ The fear twisted tighter through Drake’s body, the taste of it saturating his blood, their bond.

**You’re sharing my instincts too,** Riot pointed out.

Drake shook his head. ‘It’s not just you. I know when it’s my emotion, _my_ desire.’ He ran his hands through his hair, nails digging into his scalp. ‘What if this was inside me all along? Everything I’ve ever done was for humanity. It wasn’t about what I _wanted_, it was about doing what was _right_. Maximising survival, saving lives, saving my species and the entire fucking planet. Whatever the cost. There was no price too high. But I can’t trust that now. I can’t trust anything now. Not when I know I have _this_ lurking inside me.’

Worse than the acrid taste of Drake’s distress was the way his core thoughts had gone shifting and uncertain. The cold purpose and conviction that Riot drew comfort from were wrong and dissonant now. 

The hunt had been magnificent. When human blood had first been spilled they had gone from tense and careful, waiting for an opportunity to intervene, to glorying in the hunt and the kill. That had been better than the oceans, even, because Drake had been _there_, fully present and acting in perfect synchrony with Riot. But even that wasn’t worth these feeling. Riot wanted the awful prickling guilt and shame to go away and never come back. Deeper still, it wanted the steady clarity that so defined its host even more than it wanted shared bloodlust.

**Then we won’t hunt humans again.** Riot understood sacrifice and was willing to give up hunting humans to keep Drake from breaking under this unreasoning panic.

Drake was silent. Strong emotions flickered across their link. His voice was halting and quiet when he spoke again. ‘I don’t… the strength, the bloodlust… killing with you was absolute power and utter helplessness all wrapped up together. I never want to feel like that again.’ 

Riot felt the lie as clearly as Drake must have. It didn’t bother addressing the inconsistency and instead pushed tendrils out from Drake’s palm and oozed between his fingers. **There is other prey,** it agreed easily.

Drake gripped back unconsciously. ‘Yes. Animals are fine. The oceans are fine. It was enough.’ He shivered. 

They were restless and prowled the boundaries of their most central territory. They went to the fridge, but the neatly wrapped packs of raw meat made Drake’s stomach lurch unpleasantly. Riot silently agreed that dead prey would not be good when the memory of hot, living meat was still so fresh in their mind. 

**Shower?** it suggested.

Drake nodded wearily. ‘Yes. Good thinking.’ 

The familiar ritual of it was soothing as was the beat of warm water against their surfaces. Drake’s pulse had slowed down by the time he’d finished removing his clothes and stepped beneath the spray. Then he looked down and noticed the smear of old blood against his forearm. He breathed out slowly and carefully, and stayed detached as he eyed the dull red-brown streak against his skin. Riot was relieved. ‘Evidence,’ Drake said slowly. ‘Not a problem with you here, of course.’

Riot manifested beneath streak of blood and absorbed it. The taste wasn’t good, but it wasn’t quite bad yet, either. It peeled off Drake’s skin and pressed itself against the edges of the shower to get its share of the water. Drake was still staring at his arm. ‘I’m sure Venom and Eddie have enough experience with this kind of thing that they finished with the body.’ Drake’s heart started beating faster again. ‘Because they’ve done it often enough. And they’ll want to do it again. With us,’ Drake said hollowly.

Riot was about to derisively point out the rank-gap between it and Venom. Team leader may have been an empty title while it was exiled on a faraway planet, but there was nothing Venom could do to _compel_ them. Then it tasted Drake’s emotions more closely. His pulse was a rapid flutter again and beneath his feelings of resolve and disgust were threads of fear and, more tellingly, longing. **You think they will turn from us if we do not hunt humans together?** Riot guessed.

Drake frowned. ‘No. But I think even after we turn down the invitations, they’ll still bring it up. Brock will joke about it. We’ll probably be able to smell the blood on them half the time and Venom will share its memories with you. And one day I’ll say yes to them, because I want to and I can’t keep fighting that every time. The only solution would be to cut them out entirely. We could… how did you put it? Turn from them?’ Drake was staring at the water drops running down the side of the shower without really seeing them. Riot absorbed a few stray drops that tried to get in their eyes.

Drake’s reasoning was easy enough to follow because the thought patterns were very familiar to Riot. Strong choices. Like do nothing to save his species or do _everything_, no matter how many bodies he left in his wake. Accept Venom and Eddie’s invitation before it was even made, or never signal with them again. This was the clarity and certainty that Riot craved. This was the way the core leaders expressed things back on the homeworld and how Riot had strived to lead on missions. But.

**I do not want to turn from them. They…** Riot struggled to express its thoughts. Venom and Eddie were the only other ones on this entire planet, but that wasn’t quite all they were. Even if there had been other hybrids, Riot would still want _them_. There was no one else Riot would trust beneath its host’s skin, no else who would stand their ground against a team leader a leader like Drake, but still crave closeness, still feel that strange fondness after the heated arguments died down. **They are ours,** Riot finished simply, letting Drake have full access to the accompanying feelings through their link. 

Drake let out a deep breath and braced his hands on the tiles in front of him. His head hung down and water beat against the back of his neck. His feelings on the matter were similar enough to Riot’s that they resonated back and forth across the link. ‘I need to think.’

///

It was hard to get to sleep that night. Eddie relived bits of the hunt and the kill and kept thinking about Riot and Drake. Venom had eventually gotten annoyed by the tossing and turning and put them to sleep directly. Well, sleep and whatever it was Venom did that was _like_ sleeping. Their dreams were full of blood, but the feelings kept shifting around from horror to hunger, from defiance to denial.

They slept late and Eddie woke in the middle of the afternoon feeling fuzzy. He showered and began to feel human around his second cup of coffee. Venom tended to go quiet when they had caffeine. It had worried Eddie in the beginning until Venom had explained that it was watching the caffeine interacting with the receptors in his brain and didn’t appreciate the interruption. Apparently the reactions looked pretty. 

Eddie scrolled through his usual news sites with a professional eye. He lingered over articles written by familiar names, some he respected and some he disliked. A few interesting pieces came from the big outlets, but most of what he read came from the struggling independent outlets that were barely keeping afloat. It made them hungrier for a good story. 

Halfway through a dry piece of toast, that Venom was tolerating, his eyes caught on a very familiar name and his breath stuttered. Jim Neilson. The body, what was left of it, had been found. They’d all been so caught up last night that they hadn’t… that they’d left… they were usually neater. _They_ didn’t waste food. This was Drake’s fault.

Venom swirled around Eddie’s lungs and slid up toward his throat. **We used to be messier too. We got better at killing together.** Venom lingered on the word ‘together’ while his satisfaction spread through their link.

‘That’s not… no! We’re nothing like that, nothing like _them_. We’re quick. We don’t fucking torture! Drake is sick and absolutely no one is surprised.’

**But it was fun.** Eddie could feel Venom’s grin, even if he couldn’t see it.

‘That’s not the point,’ he said firmly. ‘When we kill, we only kill bad guys. We want to clean up the streets and make it safer for everyone else. Drake and Riot were just doing it for the thrill.’

There was a swooping feeling in Eddie’s guts, Venom’s equivalent of a shrug. He didn’t say anything else, but Eddie could feel his vague puzzlement. Luckily Venom was willing to go along with Eddie’s sense of right and wrong even if he didn’t always get it. Eddie absentmindedly ran his hand over his heartbeat, right where Venom was currently coiled, and tried to convey his gratitude. Venom pressed eagerly against the touch without manifesting.

Eddie resigned himself to painstakingly going over the article, searching for any detail that might link him or Drake to the scene. **We don’t leave pieces of ourselves,** Venom reminded him. He was always griping about the way Eddie ‘wasted cells’ and he understood the importance of not leaving any trace when they went hunting, even if he hadn’t fully grasped the reasoning. **I understand! Don’t want other humans getting our genetic information if we’re not getting any in return.**

Eddie hummed a vague agreement and kept reading. The article was very dry, laying out the facts and steering clear of any emotive language. It was a rare style for the San Fran Star, one of Eddie’s favourite independent sites. His eyes flicked to the name at the top of the article. Nancy Reinsmoen. He was less surprised to see her name on an article like this. She was an excellent crime-reporter, good at turning out articles fast and putting pressure on the police and to get just that bit more than another journalist might. There was a soundbite from a not-quite-reputable ‘profiler’ who could be relied on for sensationalist comments. Eddie would have bet his shirt that it was an editorial mandate and not something Nancy would have wanted to include. _‘This is a classic case of escalation. Leaving a few bloody smears and confused, doubtful witness reports isn’t quite enough anymore. Now there’s a body. It’s an open secret that the police suspect San Francisco’s mysterious vigilante.’_

Eddie scowled at the screen. They weren’t serial killers. He scrolled some more. No more speculation, no hint that there were any leads the cops were following. The end of the article gave way to a comments section. Eddie’s hand hovered. It would be a mistake to go any further. ‘Don’t read the comments,’ he muttered under his breath as he started reading the comments. The first few were wild reports about him and Venom with the usual ‘eye-witness’ accounts describing them as ten feet tall with glowing red eyes. Beneath that was a long comment in six parts. It was written like an article and Eddie found himself automatically skimming it. 

_While the corrupt police force sit on their collective fat asses, one member of our community isn’t afraid to take the fight to ours streets. Our values are being eroded by undesirables and human trash and most people are contend to stand by and do nothing. Do you know how few murderers and rapists have been sentenced to death in the last six months? Zero. These monsters are treated better than they’re victims in prisons supported by your tax dollars!_

The article went on to paint Eddie and Venom as a ‘hero’ who knew what these people deserved. It… wasn’t particularly well written. Eddie’s frown deepened as he read on. The phrase ‘human trash’ kept coming back and there was a whole section on protecting ‘our women’, which lost a bit of coherence half-way through. Every second paragraph heaped praise on the ‘mysterious vigilante’. Venom preened at the compliments while Eddie finished skimming it with his fingers half over his eyes. 

The six-part comment had generated a lot of subcomments. Some more reasonable, some dripping racist vitriol, some calling for the immediate execution of anyone who beat their partner, a few advocating the guillotine for CEOs. One was a link to the donation page of a local women’s shelter in response to increasingly graphic suggestions for how abusers should be skinned alive.

The last comment linked to an article on another news website that Eddie recognised. At this point Eddie’s heart had sunk to somewhere around his feet and a bitter taste was clogging up his throat. He clinked through.

It was an open letter written by a parole officer. Something besides Venom itched at the back of Eddie’s mind as he read. 

_Last week I walked into my office and was greeted by two members of the SFPD. They were here about one of my parolees. Let’s call him ‘Harry’. I remember that sinking feeling in my guts as I thought ‘Oh no, what's he done now?’ I had been so sure he was going to be one of the success stories, someone who’d turned his life around and now the police wanted to talk about him?_

_But it turns out the officers were here because of what was done to him. They’d found blood. There had been some garbled witness reports about a drug-deal gone south because a huge monster had slaughtered half the perpetrators. The police didn’t say anything about the city's new vigilante, but the thought hung over all our heads._

_I was horrified. Harry had been on the right path and I’ll be the first to admit that that was rare. It’s not easy breaking the cycle of crime, but he’d been seeing a counselor. He was working a hard, manual job paying a fraction of what drug-running had paid. You should have seen the way his face had lit up when he’d talked about being able to see his niece again since he’d reconciled with his older brother and his family. Apparently she was turning eight this year._

_So I knew he wasn’t a part of that drug deal. That was just the kind of thing that happened in his neighborhood and he must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The only question in my mind was whether this city’s vigilante knew that. Was Harry targeted accidently or was it purposeful revenge for the things he’d done years ago? _

_The crimes he’d committed had been despicable by any standard. I’d read his file and he’d pled guilty in court. And I could still tell you about the sort of things that get people into that life, the sort of upbringing, the sort of role-models, the cycle of poverty and how no one chooses their parents. But all that? That doesn't matter. What matters is that Harry was a human being. A human being who’d messed up, but was doing his best to fix that._

_The legal system isn’t perfect, but, like all the best things humans have made, I think it’s there to help people. All people. Even criminals. I get to see the flaws in our legal system on a day-to-day basis, but it’s still far less likely to get it wrong than some vigilante on the street playing judge, jury and executioner._

Eddie stared at his screen until it went into sleep mode. ‘Shit,’ he said. He knew who ‘Harry’ was, but it had taken him a while to dredge up the memory. They’d broken up a drug deal weeks ago. They’d… fed. He hadn’t even thought about it since then. It hadn’t mattered to him whether the guy had been part of the current deal or not because he’d done some very bad shit and either way that was enough to give Venom the go-ahead. There had been guns too, and Venom had some very particular ideas about proportionate responses to life-threatening situations. 

And maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe, just maybe, Harry shouldn’t have been on their list anymore. Eddie’s guts churned. People weren’t perfect, Eddie wasn’t perfect. Sure, he knew that. But he could learn, he’d do better next time. He wouldn't just look through the criminal records, he’d check where they were _now_, too. Maybe people _could_ come back from even the bad crimes, sometimes. Rarely. Even the parole officer had admitted it was rare. So Eddie would get better at research. That was his job, after all. It was fine. 

But. 

But this wasn’t the first time he’d just been looking at the criminal records. Only the criminal records. What if Harry wasn’t the first mistake? What if there had been _other_ people who shouldn’t have been on his list? Eddie’s heart thudded in his chest. Was he _bargaining_ with himself? About how many mistakes he was allowed to make out there on the streets? How many non-targets they were _allowed_ to eat by accident? One was too many. ‘Shit, oh shit,’ he said out loud as that sunk in, ‘one is too many.’

Venom had been silent, paying careful attention to Eddie’s train of thought. **What?** he said suddenly. **One kill is too many? Eddie, Eddie, are you saying we can’t hunt bad guys anymore?** he asked plaintively. 

That wasn’t what Eddie had meant. He was talking about mistakes, but hearing Venom say it like that… ‘Yeah, actually. You got it in one. We can’t do that again. If we fuck up, if _I_ fuck up… no. No, we can’t risk eating someone we shouldn’t. That would be bad. Really bad.’

Eddie put his elbows on the table and pushed his hands into his hair. He hadn’t… he just wanted to make things better. There were bad people out there. _Really_ bad people. Hunting had felt like an extension of the Brock Report. Taking down the bastards that no one could touch. But he’d never gotten anyone killed doing that. He’d been the one in danger most of the time, during the glory days. 

**We need to eat,** Venom said sullenly from the back of Eddie’s skull. 

‘Yeah, and we do. You like seafood.’ And sometimes pigeons in the park, when no one was looking. 

Eddie could feel Venom thinking, could even catch the shape of his thoughts. **You know how good it can be. Felt it last night.** Venom’s voice had gone even deeper in a way Eddie probably couldn’t even hear it if he’d been actually _hearing_ it. 

Sharp memories from last night flickered in their mind. The scents, the feelings, even the ghost of strange inhuman touches, and Drake’s all-too-human responses. Eddie took another sip of coffee to wet his suddenly dry mouth. ‘That wasn’t good. That wasn’t what we do.’ Different memories rose up. He thought of Drake’s voice, fast and intent, spouting megalomaniacal bullshit about ‘the new species’ and transcending humanity. 

A horrible thought occurred to Eddie. ‘Do you think Drake and Riot are hunting now? Like we did last night?’ What if they’d managed to convince Drake that hunting bad guys was okay? He and Riot had been… they’d enjoyed it in ways that Eddie never had. 

**Could be.**

Eddie swore again and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘If they are, we have to stop them.’

Venom growled. **Or we could join them. Even if you don’t want to kill, if a bad guy is going to die anyway, why not share? They never tried to stop us.**

‘And we’re not them. It’s the right thing to do. We can’t just stand by and let them kill. Especially if we’re responsible for showing them what it could be like in the first place,’ he added under his breath.

**Why are you suddenly so opposed to hunting?**

‘Because maybe it is too hard to know for sure. We would have to be right every time and we’re not perfect. No one is.’ 

**Humans kill each other. It’s in your memories. We’ve seen it too.**

Eddie caught a whisper of something through their link. Venom was thinking about the world he came from, about what it was like to live where sudden, violent death was mundane and matter-of-fact. The strong ate, the weak fled or hid or died. All his life Venom had expected to be killed and eaten by one of his own kind, sooner or later. The emotions around that idea were dull and resigned. Constant fear had become part of the background noise and barely noticeable. Now they were strong, now they were someone who could kill and eat whoever they wanted, however they wanted. Eddie had wanted to hunt bad guys and Venom was _eager_ to help him hunt exactly they way he had wanted.

Eddie’s chest felt weirdly tight. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that.’ He tried to capture the feeling of safety. It was a luxury he’d been able to have at various times in his life. He was a dude and he didn’t really have much to fear from the cops. Violent death wasn’t something he’d had to worry about on a day-to-day basis. Now that they were together the threat was practically non-existent. And maybe that was the world as it should be and maybe that was part of what he’d been reaching toward by getting rid of bad guys who threatened that for other people.

There was that strange feeling of Venom digging through his thoughts, piecing together the ideas, soaking up the feelings and trying to understand. When he eventually said something his voice had a wistful quality that Eddie had only heard from him once or twice. **Sounds nice.**

Eddie huffed a laugh of pure relief. ‘Yeah?’

**Yeah.** Venom lingered over the word. **Maybe we can try it that way. For a bit.**

Close enough. ‘Then we should check on Drake and Riot and make sure they’re not doing… that.’

**They won’t like it if we try and stop them.**

‘Yep.’ He tried not to think about what this might do to their relationship and focused on the immediate future instead. He stamped down hard on the little human whisper in the back of his mind that told him that this was the line of thought he’d had right before he’d invaded Annie’s privacy. But this was different. This wasn’t a breach of trust and he wasn’t going behind Drake’s back. This would be to his and Riot’s face and he was absolutely sure that this was the right thing to do. 

Eddie scrolled through his contacts and brought up Drake’s number. This was the private number, unconnected to the Life Foundation. Drake had typed it into Eddie’s phone one night a couple of months ago and muttered something about it simplifying things without meeting his eyes. At the time Eddie had wondered who else had the number. Drake had to have friends. Other obnoxious CEO business-types or maybe scientists from his past life as a researcher? Not even someone like Drake could be that alone, right?

The phone kept on ringing and Drake kept on not picking up. Eddie frowned. Maybe Drake was avoiding him. Or Riot was. He was just about to hang up when Drake answered.

‘Hello Eddie, Venom.’ There was something off about Drake’s voice. He sounded a bit like he had last night, right before he’d taken off.

‘Hi. Are you two alright?’ Eddie asked. Venom oozed out and sent tiny little tendrils halfway over the speaker. 

There was a pause. ‘We’re fine. But things are busy right now. We’ll talk later.’

That was weirdly non-specific. Drake usually made a point of trying to make his business stuff sound interesting to try and lure Eddie into signing on with Foundation. ‘Later when?’ Eddie asked suspiciously. 

‘I’ll let you know when I know.’

Eddie frowned again and opened his mouth to try and get some clarification. Venom was the one who cut him off. **‘Have something to share, Riot.’**

Eddie raised his eyebrows, trying to ask Venom if he really meant that without saying anything out loud.

Venom got the gist of the question through their link. **Technically yes, but not why I said it. We are _concerned_.** He said the last part hesitantly, like he wasn’t used to the idea.

There was a soft growl on the other end of the line. **‘Later,’** said Riot. The line went dead.

Eddie took the phone away from his ear and stared down at it. Venom slowly drew away from the speaker. ‘What, uh, type of growl was that, from Riot? Like an angry growl? Or a… sad growl?’ 

**Hard to know with just hearing it. Didn’t sound angry, not scared either. I don’t know what a sad growl would sound like.**

‘What are the odds that they’re doing something bad right now?’

Venom shrugged in a way Eddie felt at in the pit of his guts. 

‘Alright, new plan. Riot was able to find us before he’d gotten back with Drake. Could you find _him_?’

**Yes.**

‘Alright,’ Eddie said steadily, ‘then let’s go hunt some hunters.’ He tried not to imagine what else they’d find when they got there.

///

Venom didn’t end up taking them to their old hunting grounds like Eddie had feared. Instead they paused at the top of the building opposite Drake’s penthouse. They looked up, their eyes just good enough to make out the faint glow of light coming from behind Drake’s bedroom curtains. _They’re home?_ Eddie asked.

**That is where Riot is,** Venom sounded disappointed that they hadn’t found him standing on a pile of human bodies.

Eddie just was relieved. _We need to get in there._

**Easy.** Their muscles flexed and bunched as Venom launched them at Drake’s building. They didn’t dig their claws in too far as they scaled the side of the building, relying more on micro-cracks for traction against their seeking tendrils. Outside Drake’s bedroom window, Venom considered their options and tapped on the glass with their claws instead of just punching through. No response. They scored the glass with their claws and held back a wince at the ugly frequency. There were sounds from inside and then the curtains drew back. 

Drake glared out at them and a heartbeat later Riot manifested behind his shoulders, hints of blades and teeth rippling across his surface. 

Venom grinned and his claws tapped against the glass again.

Drake pulled the window open hard enough to rattle the frame. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

Eddie and Venom swung through, landing lightly in the centre of Drake’s bedroom. **‘Busy, huh?’** they said.

‘Busy thinking. I can see how the concept would be foreign to you.’ Riot’s tendrils reached out, but lashed back toward Drake before they could make contact. 

**‘Thinking about the hunt?’**

Drake’s eyes glinted. ‘Yes. Coming here now with it still so fresh in all our minds was practically strategic of you. I can almost admire that.’ 

Their eyes widened. They knew Drake was smart, but… **‘You know why we’re here?’**

‘I can guess. Last night was…’ he trailed off and the intent expression on his face made them uneasy. He wet his lips before he spoke again. ‘Say what you came to say. I don’t think you’ll catch us at a better time.’

They hesitated and Venom pulled back beneath Eddie’s skin, trying to soothe some of Riot’s defensiveness. Eddie blinked and nearly stumbled with the sudden sense of full control. When he looked up after regained his footing, he was confronted with the weight of Drake’s stare. It was an effort to force the next words out. ‘You were right,’ said Eddie. Making that kind of concession to Drake made him feel dirty, but reminding Drake of his original position and _agreeing_ with it was probably the best bet for fixing this. Whatever had changed after last night’s hunt, Drake was still the sort of person who wanted to hear those words. Eddie was sure. 

‘About what?’ Drake asked warily.

‘That maybe we were kidding ourselves about “bad guys”. That making the call like that isn’t as easy as I made it seem. You were right that… that Venom and I enjoyed it. Maybe not like you guys did, but that was part of it.’ Venom’s satisfaction at the admission was probably unconscious, but it still made Eddie feel kind of bad. 

Drake’s eyes flashed when he met Eddie’s gaze. ‘Have you ever heard of escalation?’ he asked in a deceptively mild voice. 

Eddie grimaced. ‘You’re not the first person to point that out. And look, I get it that what we did last night wasn’t _that_ different to what Venom and I did before we involved you two.’

‘So now you’ve let go of this notion of “bad guys”, too? Strangely enough, I like the idea of a lack of pretence. It feels cleaner. Justifications have lost some of their… stability, for me.’ Eddie didn’t like the look on Drake’s face at all. His usual smooth control had cracked down the middle and the glimpses of what was lurking underneath set Eddie’s teeth on edge. He eyed the way Riot’s tendrils were coiling restlessly in the air and around Drake. Venom wasn’t able to provide a body-language translation about that either. 

Then Drake spoke again. ‘I feel like we’re all standing on the edge of a precipice. I thought I’d made my choices last night, afterwards, but just seeing you two here and catching the scent of the whole damn city…’ He gestured toward the open window and shivered. More of Riot seeped through his clothes in response. They looked dangerous like that, an otherworldly hybrid predator.

Eddie held up his hands carefully and Venom didn’t even try to stop him. ‘Then take a step back from the edge with us. We’ll stick to the oceans, to animals. That was fun too, yeah?’ he said a little desperately.

Drake, and even Riot, froze. ‘What?’ he asked very quietly.

‘You were right, before. We can’t make the call about who lives and who dies. We can’t do that again and… and we’d try to stop you two if you did.’ Bad enough to maybe get it wrong. The way Drake thought, he probably still didn’t see much of a difference between good guys and bad guys. No pretence, he’d said.

They weren’t ready when Drake and Riot suddenly grabbed them and shoved them up against the wall beside the open window. Venom lashed out instinctively and was met by Riot. They symbiotes clashed, but they were both hesitating, holding back like they hadn’t on the launchpad. Eddie grabbed Drake’s wrists, but only held on grimly, still hoping that he could de-escalate this. ‘Back off, Drake,’ he said calmly.

‘I can't believe you,’ Drake snarled. ‘I thought you’d come here to tempt us into another hunt. But no, you’ve had a _change of heart_ about two days too late and instead you come here to explain how you’d _stop_ us if we’d picked up _your_ fucking hobby.’ 

Eddie’s knees went weak with relief and Venom and Riot paused in their half-hearted struggle. ‘You didn’t decide you liked it. Thank fuck.’

Drake gave a mirthless laugh, his eyes still glittering with rage. ‘I’m sure you felt exactly how much I enjoyed it last night. That’s why I wanted some distance. I needed to decide what I was willing to do to keep you two.’

Those words made Venom’s thoughts go straight to Drake’s labs and he rippled defensively across Eddie’s skin. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Eddie growled. 

‘It felt good. It felt so fucking good and you two – you have no _idea_ what I’ve sacrificed for my life’s work. I burned relationships, personal and professional, for my goals. Because they got in the way of what really mattered. But I think I would have killed with you two to keep this. Maybe you were right all along. Maybe I am a monster and all it took was a little disinhibition to realise it.’ Riot curled up the side of Drake’s throat and extended thin tendrils across his jaw and cheek. Drake’s lips quirked up, but the expression was nothing like a smile. ‘Yes, precisely,’ he said out loud, presumably in response to whatever Riot was saying privately.

Eddie was stunned. He could tell that Venom and Riot were having their own conversation, but Venom was too focused to translate the signals. Drake anger was draining away and now he just looked tired. More tired than when he pulled stupid hours at the Foundation, even. His fists unclenched until his palms were resting flat against Eddie’s chest. It turned out that compassion was a hard impulse for Eddie to fight, even when the other person had practically admitted to being a monster. Even when he knew about the blood on their hands. It wasn’t like his were so clean these days either. 

Eddie let go of Drake’s wrists and wrapped his arms around him instead. He could feel Drake tensing up and then the moment when he decided not to pull away. Drake let out a heavy sigh and returned the hug. ‘This new species is a mess,’ he muttered near Eddie’s ear.

‘But I wouldn’t trade it for anything,’ Eddie said lightly.

‘No. Not for anything.’ The way Drake said that sent a shiver down Eddie’s spine. He could imagine what ‘anything’ might look like to him.

Venom oozed across the back of Eddie’s neck and down his spine. **Riot also thinks this fight was pointless. Not as if we were trying to eat each other.**

Eddie didn’t bother arguing the point and just let himself enjoy having the three of them pressed against him. ‘We can stay here tonight, if you two want,’ he said as casually as he could, knowing he’d never willingly suggested staying over at Drake’s. Part of it was that Venom liked _their_ territory more, but the bigger part was that it would be too easy to let their life get engulfed by Drake’s. Out there in the real world, where people didn’t know about giant flesh-eating aliens, Drake held too many of the cards, had too much of the power. If Eddie didn’t stand his ground, didn’t push back, he’d get trampled and Drake probably wouldn’t even realise he’d done it. 

Drake’s surprise was palpable. ‘You want to–’ he cut himself off mid-sentence. ‘Yes. We’d like that.’ He paused. ‘Thank you.’

Eddie knew he’d heard the words beneath the words and knew what he and Venom were offering, if only for tonight. ‘S’okay,’ said Eddie.


End file.
